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FORMALITY REVIEW OF CORPORATE REGISTRATIONS
There have often been disputes in practice as to whether the corporate registration authorities should conduct only a formality review of the details to be recorded in a company's registration, or whether they must make a further substantive review. In view of such disagreements, on 12 June 2007 a conference of the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court concluded that only a formality review is required. The main reasons are as follows:
．Following amendments to the Company Act, it is now the responsibility of a Certified Pub-lic Accountant to audit and certify the capital amount of a company on incorporation or on registration of a change in capital.
．Amendments to the Company Act have re-moved the requirement for the competent au-thority to "dispatch personnel to conduct in-spections".
．If a forged or falsified document has been used in a company's incorporation or in other mat-ters regarding its registration, the company's registration cannot be revoked or cancelled until a court judgment to that effect becomes final and irrevocable.
．The Company Act still provides that "where the competent authority believes that an ap-plication for registration of a company is not compliant with the Act or does not conform to statutory procedures and formalities, it shall order the applicant to make corrections; no registration shall be granted until such time as corrections have been made in line with the law". However, this refers merely to a for-mality review of whether the application fails to comply with the Company Act or with statutory procedures and formalities. As long as the application is in form compliant with the law, then registration should be granted, and no further substantive review will be un-dertaken.
Because the company registration authorities now conduct only a formality review, if a person applying to register company information, in the clear knowledge that such information is incor-rect, causes a public servant to record such in-correct information in public documents admin-istered by the public servant pursuant to his of-ficial duties, such as to cause harm to the public or to other persons, then that person would be guilty of the offence of causing a public servant to make a false record, as defined in the Criminal Code.